Page 74 of The Official Problem
Kieran wasn’t sure what to do with that. He brushed a finger over Matthieu’s lower lip. “Thank you for letting me come.”
“Well, she’s a big part of my life. Now you are too. So…”
Damn if that didn’t make Kieran’s heart swell.
Matthieu stood in the kitchen, eyeing the absurd amount of groceries Novak’s wife had stuffed into the fridge, formulating a plan for tackling the mammoth task of Christmas dinner.
The idea had come to Kieran a few days earlier. Sitting in a hotel room in Raleigh, he’d been suddenly overwhelmed by the need to make the three days Matthieu promised to share with him as special as possible. He’d knocked on Novak’s hotel room door—probably too early—and demanded Lori’s number. Lori was the stand-in head of the WAPs (Wives and Partners), since Jasper had little interest in the title. She’d been only too happy to help, and Kieran returned home to a house dripping in Christmas spirit and a note on the counter in perfect cursive:I hope you both have the best Christmas, xo.
He hadn’t told her who he’d be spending the day with, but since the locker room had quickly latched onto the fact that someone new and shiny was in Kieran’s life, her assumption wasn’t exactly off base. Kieran was sure he’d get mercilessly mocked for it later.
“All of this will feed you for a week,” Matthieu said, dropping an armful of ingredients onto the countertop. “You’re sure you want all the trimmings?”
“Hell yeah,” Kieran said, joining him on the other side of the island. “Do you know how many chances I get to eat like a complete pig during the season? I want it all.”
“Oh, really?” Matthieu shot him a flirty little smile that had Kieran batting him away.
“None of that, or I’ll never get fed.”
“I’ll feed you something, alright.”
Kieran tugged Matthieu close, a pleased hum rumbling from his throat. Maybe his stomach could wait. They’d be too full for messing around later anyway.
“Where do you want me?” Kieran whispered in Matthieu’s ear.
Matthieu rolled his eyes and shoved him away. “All the way over there, peeling potatoes.”
The next few hours played out much the same—Matthieu bossing Kieran around in his own kitchen, broken up by sneaky ass grabs and stolen kisses. They were good, though—aside from the blowjob Kieran gave Matthieu while he tried to grate cheese—and before Kieran knew it, his counter was covered with some of the most delicious-looking food he’d ever seen.
Matthieu could cook. Like, really cook. Not just reheating or tossing things in a pan; he was confident about it, too. It was unbelievably sexy.
“How’d you learn to cook like this?” Kieran asked as they sat at his small dining table. He hadn’t eaten here once since moving in five months ago.
“Out of necessity. A lot of Googling. A lot of YouTube videos. That first year I had custody of Julie, I was terrified CPS would show up and take her away. So I did my best to make sure she was well fed with balanced meals, even if I only had food stamps to work with.” He took a big bite, chewing slowly. “I got good at making something out of nothing. Having a fully stocked kitchen—that’s a dream.”
Kieran considered that for a moment, glancing around a house that always felt too big and empty when Matthieu wasn’t in it. It was smaller than most of his teammates’ places, yet three bedrooms were two too many. He hadn’t thought twice about the cost—just signed where Cole told him to. Left the lights on for days while he was out of town. Had a fucking maid, and some food service he paid—he wasn’t even sure how much—to keep things in order and his fridge fully stocked. He usually ended up throwing away half of it.
“Would you tell me what happened back then? With your mom and Julie. Why did you leave so fast?”
Kieran wasn’t even sure why he was asking, prodding at an old wound that had only just started to heal. But he wanted to know—desperately. To burrow into Matthieu’s mind and feel everything he had all those years ago. He’d been robbed of that back then—robbed of the chance to carry some of Matthieu’s pain. To soothe it. To hold him close when the days were hard and the nights harder. Instead, Matthieu had been alone, and Kieran couldn’t stomach the thought.
Matthieu pushed mashed potatoes around his plate, not avoiding Kieran’s gaze but not quite meeting it either.
Finally, he sighed. “The signs had been there for a while. We were just reading them wrong. Julie and I thought she was bipolar—the outbursts, the mood swings, the way she’d go from furious to numb in seconds. It all fit. The doctors thought so too. They gave her meds, therapy referrals, nutrition plans?—”
Matthieu trailed off, stabbing a Brussels sprout.
“I was so damn angry. She had every tool she needed and refused to use them. I blamed her for choosing to stay sick. Then, not long after I left for Michigan, the confusion started. Small stuff at first. Julie said she kept forgetting appointments or leaving groceries in the car, swearing she’d already put them away. She’d get angrier if you brought it up.
“I tried to fix what I could from hundreds of miles away, coaching Julie through how to handle her. I felt so fucking helpless, like every time the phone rang, something else had gone wrong.” He exhaled hard, like he could push the memories out on a breath, trying to relieve some of the pressure talking about this had stirred up. “Then it got worse. She’d get lost walking the same neighborhood we’d always lived in. She’d call Julie in a full panic, swearing someone had stolen her car, or leave the stove on for hours. That’s when it stopped feeling like defiance and started feeling like something else entirely.”
Kieran couldn’t imagine how hard it must’ve been, so far from home and unable to help his little sister navigate their mother’s unraveling.
“The school counselor tipped off CPS that something might be going on at home. They did a full investigation—doctor visits, cognitive assessments—and that’s when they finally realized she wasn’t bipolar.
“It’s called frontotemporal dementia. Basically, her brain’s deteriorating. It affects the parts that control personality and behavior first. Bipolar disorder is a common misdiagnosis. Then it moves to the temporal lobes—confusion, memory loss. Right now, some days are better than others, but eventually she won’t even remember her own name. She’ll lose the ability to speak, to care for herself. She’ll need round-the-clock care.”
Kieran reached across the table and took Matthieu’s hand. Neither of them ate anymore. He wished he had the words to say how sorry he was, how hard all of this must be, how if there was anything—absolutely anything—he could do to help or make this better, all Matthieu had to do was ask.
